Govt collects a big crypto fine, fine makes the big losers in FTX whole, problem solved.
CZ should have just bought FTX and closed the deal and made people whole, woulda saved himself some drama.
Only at the “modelling a cow as a perfectly thermoconducting sphere” level of analysis.
Actual damages and preliminary injunctions to preserve a situation remediable by damages are about that, other parts of what happens in civil cases are often not. E.g., punitive damages are, as the name suggests, punitive, not compensatory.
- Punitive damages were awarded in only 5% of trials where the plaintiff won
- It was lower for tort cases (3%) and higher for contract cases (8%)
- It is lower in product liability and medical cases (1% each)
Those findings show that the punitive damages awarded are both relatively rare and modest. A "spherical cow model" based on compensatory damages is probably still a very good model.
[1] https://www.centerjd.org/content/fact-sheet-punitive-damages...
There's so many people who Trump and his various enterprises left stuck with sometimes very huge bills that it's a miracle he didn't get dinged years ago. And that is why Trump is being on the receiving end of the stick at the moment... he forgot one crucial point: never make too many enemies in life because eventually they will team up to get their revenge on you.
[1] https://eu.northjersey.com/story/news/columnists/mike-kelly/...
[2] https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/0...
In US, you can be rich and get away with a lot of crime and crookedness.
If Trump does go to prison, that will make quite the news.
Putin and Xinping will be laughing because they have such a strong hold on their countries, them going to jail is unthinkable.
That’s one way to look at it. Another way is to note that they’ve done a real good job of limiting their potential future options. They get to remain in power, or be exiled and live in hiding, or be dead? They’re unlikely to resign and get to live a quiet retirement, just as they’re unlikely to be jailed by their opponents?
I think that (sadly) the key distinction in the American justice system has to do with how easily it is to justify your prosecution to the public. If you're wildly popular, you're probably able to get away with quite a lot. If you're wildly unpopular, it's probably pretty easy to get a conviction on any number of things.
Justice, in its broadest sense, is the concept that individuals are to be treated in a manner that is equitable and fair. A society in which justice has been achieved would be one in which individuals receive what they "deserve"
So, what do they deserve? It's up to a panel of peers to determine. Peers, mind you, that are representative of the society you live in.
So in a sense, public outcry and court of public opinion can sway personal opinions on what is just and fair and determine what people deserve. I find the entire system malleable and ripe for corruption.
https://web.archive.org/web/20170710014221/https://www.washi...
Think about this: I hijack an airplane full of people but all I do is get them to their destination faster. Everyone is better off (i.e., no material injury occurred) but I assume you'd still think I should be charged, no?
FWIW- Madoff used the same excuse that "nobody actually lost money." According to him, none of the principal was lost, it was just unrealized gains. Most people still think he should have been charged with fraud.
But he would do livestreams where he said anyone without insurance or that had insurance that wouldn’t cover it could DM him and he would take care of it for them. One of my online friends was able to get the medication this way.
You can do a lot of illegal things and get away with it, but questioning the US government’s ability is just asking to be made an example of.
There are limited law enforcement resources and no doubt Silk Road would have gotten a bit longer reprieve, but once he poked the bear, you damn well know they said “I don’t care what it costs, I want this guy in prison for the rest of his life”.
I actually can't believe he didn't get jail time given the severity of what was uncovered.
Could we make a connection about Binance, and now Kraken prosecution with what happened after 9/11 where US pressed countries such as Switzerland to remove bank secrets? [1]
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/24/swiss-claim-the-us-banking-c....
Pretty much every major marketing push and normalized on social media (Including NFTs and influencer Culture) ends up being a massive scam.
It worries me that no one sees the trend and holds social companies & people involved properly accountable for this form of crowdsourced theft.
Is this conjecture?
SBF was convicted ~2 weeks ago and a Section 35B (federal cooperation and substantial assistance) doesn't go through that quickly, unless SBF started cooperating against CZ before his conviction.
And it sure didn't seem like SBF was interested in cooperating in any way pre-conviction.
most people criticize fines as a mere check for the offender belonging to some moneyed elite and nothing else.
fines are not replacement for civil law. if anyone think they were wronged, that's the only way. not a magically proactive government becoming their patents.
TL;DR: they might have assets but they were and are still "awful financially"
It was far cheaper for CZ to pay the $4.3B fine.
Sounds like kicking the can down the road to me. That won't end well.
SBF commits fraud and loses $8b, CZ pleads guilty and pays $4.3B fine and loses access to US market. I don't know why so many people think the crypto space is legit and this is just a temporary setback.
Otherwise somebody else will be left "holding the bag" eventually (and it will be a larger bag).
I might be old-fashioned but these fines and charges, to be clear, are for ACTUAL wrong-doing, you know, MONEY LAUNDERING. That's greedy-bad-guy stuff. It's not arbitrary or simply a matter of "avoiding drama".
"It's only when the tide goes out that you see who's swimming naked". The tide was going out even without CZ's actions. And FTX was swimming naked to the bone.
What is not the case is that it would have clearly gone one way or the other.